Apologies for the long delay at the moment, I'm having some trouble with my PC playing the last stage of Catalunya, I've tried three times so far and it's crashed mid-race every time, so as you may be able to understand, motivation is not at an all-time high right at the moment. However, hopefully I will be able to resolve the problem soon, and if not I might just have to sim the stage and move on.
I had another two goes at trying to get the stage to work but it refused to co-operate - so I guessed the best solution was just to quick sim the stage. It's quite a disappointment, as it means Champ misses out on the KoM jersey by a tiny margin, but if I want to carry on with the story and keep up motivation it's the only thing I can do.
That concludes Chambula's first World Tour race, ultimately disappointing but on balance fairly successful, he's got himself noticed at least!
Over the next week I'll try and get a review of March done before heading off to Trentino.
Shame that the game messed it up. Still, 27th isn't bad for his WT race although I'd have preferred it if he might had stayed in Top 25, just to have it in his portofolio. And missing out on the mountain jersey by just 2 points sucks big time.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Shonak - It is quite a shame, I was really hoping that I could get the stage to work and let Chambula claim the mountains jersey but it wasn't to be. I guess missing out by that margin only strenghtens his resolve though!
sutty - I think it was just that stage that was causing problems, so I should be able to settle back into a rhythm now that I've got over a little busy period with school etc. as well.
Apologies for the extremely slow speed this has been going at recently, I think it should pick up a bit in the next few weeks
March has been a much better month for the team. After a poor showing in February, everyone seems to have really stepped up a gear, and after a fantastic victory in Strade Bianche by Edvald Boasson Hagen; we put up a good showing at the Paris-Nice - Tirreno double-header. Boasson Hagen himself registered a surprising podium, with Richie Porte just a few seconds behind him in fourth, and after winning the TTT convincingly in Tirreno, Wiggo held on through the mountains to win overall.
The classics campaign looked to be a disaster, as bar Edvald, who registered a couple average finishes around 10th place, no-one could get into the top 25 in Milan-SanRemo, E3 or Gent-Wevelgem. However this was turned around as Bernie Eisel hung on desparately to the wheels of Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen to claim one of the grittiest 3rd places ever in the Ronde van Vlaanderen.
Catalunya has already been covered, that was fairly succesful, and I even managed to get myself my first points - along with the CQ ranking shown below, I also have 1 WT point!
CQ Ranking - Individual
1
Tom Boonen
Omega Pharma - Quick-Step
1002
2
Fabian Cancellara
RadioShack - Leopard
742
3
JoaquÃm RodrÃguez
Katusha Team
685
4
Niki Terpstra
Omega Pharma - Quick-Step
633
5
Gianni Meersman
Omega Pharma - Quick-Step
620
...
273
Chambula Dorji
Sky Procycling
39
CQ Ranking - Team
1
Omega Pharma - Quick-Step
3984
2
Movistar Team
2411
3
BMC Racing Team
2046
4
RadioShack - Leopard
2030
5
Sky Procycling
1890
Bernhard Eisel's performance in the Ronde van Vlaanderen was, for me, this month's highlight. I could never imagine myself being able to ride up all those cobbled hills!
The Giro del Trentino is a very hard race, with two mouth-watering summit finishes, including the Sega di Ala on the last stage, which is about 12km at 9%! However we have brought a strong team (as ever) and the team management rather fancy our chances of a podium finish overall. Bradley Wiggins leads the team, as we hope to gain a good result in the Team Time Trial before holding on to a possible lead through controlling the race in the mountains; with Belarussian pairing of Kiryienka and Siutsou his able lieutenants.
The full team:
Ian Boswell Joseph Dombrowski Chambula Dorji Vasil Kiryienka Kanstantsin Siutsou Bradley Wiggins
The Favourites
Not an amazingly strong field, as many riders are opting to go to Fleche Wallonne instead of here, but there are three top names the management singled out in our pre-race debrief:
Michele Scarponi has had a nondescript season so far, but he will be looking to change that with a good result here on his home turf. Never one to be discounted, he has a strong team at his disposal, including Przemyslaw Niemiec, ready to take over if Michele cracks at some point.
Jakob Fuglsang has been similarly anonymous, but that might change here - he’s a good climber with some pretty strong back-up as well.
Cadel Evans may be old, but a fighting 5th in Tirreno proved there’s still life in the old dog yet. The parcours of this short yet tough race seems suited to him, and his great tactical nous could prove decisive.
This should be a race very well suited to the Champ. That is to say, if he gets some freedom. But he probably just will have the honour to work his ass off for Sir Wiggins.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
A fairly gentle start today to what is a very difficult tour. However, the one climb on the route, the Iselberg, is quite difficult and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone made a move on it.
A break of four riders formed fairly early on during the stage, but none of them were riders who looked to be a threat so everything was sailing along nicely until about 10km before the Iselberg, when a group of four riders (Chernetskiy, Bongiorno, Chaves and de Marchi) attacked, leading to a distinct increase in pace at the front.
As we reached the climb, some big attacks started coming, including Kiserlovski of RadioShack and Santaromita of BMC, both very good on the hills. As you can see, we were straight on the front, trying to make sure that no-one could establish that much of a gap.
However our efforts didn't seem to be making much of a difference, despite a massive increase in pace, a group of six more riders started to get away on the descent. This group contained the dangerous Lampre duo of Scarponi and Niemiec, Peter Velits, Fuglsang, Duarte and Sella.
At this point the team wanted me to pace, being easily the best descender in the squad, but I had fallen quite a long way back in the pack and was unable to make it to the front.
Going under the 5km to go banner, the group ahead had expanded as several people from the two groups that had attacked earlier fell back. However, the peloton, led by a combination of RadioShack and Omega Pharma, completely ignoring the fact that their leaders were up the road, was closing in fast.
In the end it was Kevin Hulsmans, one of the original members of the breakaway, who took the victory, with a narrow gap to Bongiorno and Chernetskiy in second and third respectively.
Unbeknowst to us at the time, Jakob Fuglsang had managed to sneak into a small lead group which finished 35 seconds ahead of the reduced main field, meaning he is definitely the best-placed of the favourites.
I genuinely have no idea what happened on this stage... I followed my usual principle for playing TTTs, which is to play it to get some screenshots, and then quit and sim the stage to get an accurate result, but I ended up with this...
Giro del Trentino
Stage 2: Lienz - Lienz TTT
2.HC
A short and not particularly technical course today (or so I’m told - I have yet to ride a dreaded individual time trial in my career, this would be my first experience of a time-trial, luckily I have the support of my team-mates today, as it is a Team Time Trial!
Lampre set off full of intent for their leaders Scarponi and Niemiec, but were a mediocre 10th in the end.
RadioShack were favourites to win the day, and put in a strong performance which saw them top the provisional standings, but later found themselves pushed down into second.
We set off, with Wiggins at the front, and me at the back, naturally.
OPQS are always a strong TTT outfit, and they finished 4th
BMC were also strong contenders for the win today, and the pre-match speculation proved to be correct, as they beat RadioShack by 17 seconds, quite a big margin
However, disaster had befallen the team! Wiggins and Dombrowski had clipped wheels with each other and crashed (unfortunately the TV cameras did not capture this incident as they were focussing elsewhere). We plodded on, but we knew the day was lost, and we ended up dead last.
After our chastening day yesterday, we are all placed dreadfully in the General Classification, all over two minutes down, so at last the management has relented and allowed us free rides, although still keeping an eye out for Wiggins to make sure his Giro d’Italia preparation is going well.
It was a long day today - 220km of racing, and so we join the action at the foot of the Passo Lavaze, the only col before the finish at Vetriolo Terme. There are two men out front, Pomoshnikov of RusVelo and Westra of Vacansoleil, and they have a gap of 10 minutes back to the main field.
There was not much action on the climb, apart from a bit of pacing from Katusha to narrow the gap down to about 7 minutes. However, as we had been told by the team management that we were allowed a free role today, Joe [Dombrowski] and I hatched a plan. We rode off the front together, despite the enormous distance to the finish (I’m in his wheel) and quickly gained a minute’s lead.
It turned out other teams had similar ideas, as Niemiec and de Clercq attacked near the top of the climb. They too quickly gained time on the sluggish peloton, and by the time we started to fly down the descent we had almost two minutes advantage over them, who held a further minute over the peloton.
As I reached the foot of the descent I realised I'd dropped Dombo! I was now exactly halfway between the two leaders and the peloton, 3 and a half minutes both ways.
As the two of us rejoined near the start of the difficult up-and-down section that lasted until the final ascent, we heard that Niemiec and de Clercq had been brought back! The peloton was accelerating!
Unfortunately, with just under 50km to go, Joe told me he no longer had the legs to continue at my speed (he had been doing a large amount of the work after all) and had decided to drop back to the main field as he was not feeling too great. I thanked him profusely for his work, and carried on.
However, by the time I made the juncture to the two leaders, the gap to the peloton was a mere 1'17'' with still more than 20km to go. Behind me, the attacks were starting to come!
As the race reached the climb, the gap had surprisingly not come down by that much, but that was all about to change as Michele Scarponi launched a huge attack!
He soon bridged up to the lead group, with me on the front, and we had 50 seconds advantage on a group of 4 (Pirazzi, de Clercq, Rebellin, Duarte) who had a further 35 seconds on the 'peloton' - a mere 44 riders at this point.
Soon, as the gradient suddenly skyrocketed, everyone was within one helicopter shot. Scarponi was leading, with myself and Pomoshnikov 16 seconds behind, about to be absorbed into the group behind which was not very far behind at all, which in turn was only 25 seconds ahead of the peloton, still with Wiggins, Kiryienka and Siutsou representing us.
Cadel Evans went flying past me, in pursuit of Scarponi, and everyone (except Scarponi that is) was brought back together.
As I started to recede backwards faster than a terrified deer runs away from a cheetah, Kiryienka launched an attack with 5km to go.
Scarponi was making massive inroads (he is on the top road) but Kiryienka, along with Wiggins and Fuglsang were slowly but surely pulling away, towards Evans.
Up ahead Evans had unexpectedly managed to close the gap to Scarponi, and it would be a two-way sprint!
A superb victory for Cadel Evans! No celebration as he is obviously intent on getting as many seconds on Scarponi as possible!
A minute later, Kiryienka put in an impressive performance to easily outsprint Fuglsang, and Wiggins who had slightly dropped off the back of the group.
Quite a while later, I pushed myself over the line, completely exhausted and feeling bitterly disappointed that my efforts had not resulted in something more spectacular.
Katusha Team
Vasil Kiryienka
